10 PHYLLOCLADUS TRICHOMANOIDES. 
used for the weatherboards and flooring were in sound and good condition after 
being erected over forty years. I have had no opportunity of testing these state- 
ments, but see no reason to doubt them. 
A quantity of railway-sleepers split at the commencement of the Auckland 
and Drury Railway in 1805 were stacked on the line at Papakura, where they 
remained, in consequence of the discontinuance of the works, till 1873, when the 
stacks were taken down. The bottom layer of one of the stacks consisted of 
tanekaha sleepers which had been placed directly on the ground, and, although 
in this trying position for eight years, had remained perfectly sound, with the 
exception of some small patches of sap which had decayed without affecting 
the heartwood. 
It has been extensively used on the Thames Goldfield and in the Waikato 
coal-mines for sleepers, mine-props, struts, caps, piles, &c., also for marine 
piles, railway-sleepers, and occasionally for building purposes. 
In addition to the uses already enumerated, the timber appears to be 
especially suitable for planking for bridges, wharves, and jetties, for beams and 
flooring for warehouses, and for the manufacture of threshing-machines and 
other agricultural implements in which wood is employed. 
The young plants may often be found by thousands, forming slender rods 
from 3ft. to 5ft. long, with numerous whorls of slender branches. In this stage 
they would find ready sale in the London market for walking-sticks, stocks for 
gig-whips, &c., if they could be supplied at a moderate price. Bushmen occa- 
sionally manufacture handsome mottled walking-sticks from this tree by taking 
a fresh sapling and striking the bark at close intervals with any blunt-edged 
instrument, such as the back of a table-knife. Owing to the dyeing properties 
contained in the bark the white wood becomes permanently mottled with 
clouded brownish markings. | 
The bark contains from 23 to 28 per cent. of tannin, and is therefore highly 
valued by the tanner. It possesses a special value as an organic mordant in the 
preparation of basils for kid-gloves, and has realised from £30 to £50 per ton in 
London for this purpose; but the demand is intermittent, as it is dependent on 
the caprice of fashion with regard to particular shades of colour, 
DESCRIPTION, 
Phyllocladus trichomanoides, Don. 
P. trichomanoides, Don., Hook., Icones Plantarum, t. 549, 550, 551: 
A moneecious tree 6oft. high or more; trunk 1ft.-3ft. in diameter ; branches 
whorled, branchlets slender; young leaves in. long, narrow linear, crowded ; 
phyllodia, developed on each side of a short branchlet, coriaceous, fan-shaped, 
obliquely rhomboid, lobed or toothed. Flowers: Male catkins in terminal 
clusters of from five to ten, shortly pedicelled; female, solitary on the margins 
of the phyllodes, which are often reduced to mere peduncles ; one-flowered, 
consisting of a naked ovule with a membranous cup-shaped envelope at the 
base, seated in a deep cup formed by two united fleshy scales; nut compressed, 
The flowers are produced in October. 
EXPLANATION OF PLates VI. anp VII. 
VI. Phyllocladus trichomanoides, Don. 1. Youne plant, natural Size. 
. Fruiting branch of a mature plant, natural size. r | 
VII. Phyllocladus trichomanoides, Don. Flowerine branch, natural size- 
1. Male catkin. 2. Lower surface of scale. a. Weper Leics of scale, 
4. Female flowers. 5. Young fruits, 6. Mature fruits. 7, Ovule. 38. Longi- 
tudinal section of ovule. g. Nut detached from its cup, showing the mem- 
branous envelope at its base. 10. Longitudinal section of nut. All magnified. 
bo 
